Abstract

FIGUEIRO, Pablo  and  PUGLIA, María de las Nieves. Prostitutes and gamblers: abject economies in Argentina at the dawn of the 20th century. Rev. colomb. soc. [online]. 2021, vol.44, n.1, pp.195-215.  Epub Nov 27, 2021. ISSN 0120-159X.  https://doi.org/10.15446/rcs.v44n1.87937.

The ways that the state has dealt with abject practices and bodies has been complex. In Argentina, the laws designed from the nineteenth century have a unique configuration inspired by hygienist and religious morality associated with an imaginary of the Nation that left a particular mark on the way that society defined some practices as criminal. We focus on the link between legality, economic practices, and morals based on the analysis of two cases: women who practiced prostitution and gamblers in the late ígth and early 20th centuries. Both practices were considered marginal, susceptible to dispute between punitive policies and discourses of "necessary evil" and were the object of public policies that configured subjectivities as "sick people", "vicious people", and "criminals".

In this way, the paper aims to reflect on the link between law and moral, political and social imaginaries around the idea of Nation and of economic growth after 1880. To this end we seek to make a comparative exercise of the ways that were treated in In Argentina the practices considered abject due to their exteriority in relation to the imaginary of hegemonic society.

Based on a genealogical perspective, from parliamentary debates and the legislation of the time, we trace the cognitive schemes under certain economic practices were classified as immoral and harmful to the Nation. For this we emphasize the relationship between money and popular sectors.

In gambling, money is morally "laundered" and institutionally marked as public good money, turning an "immoral" and uneconomic activity that turned waste into charity, promoting savings and economic profitability. While in the case of prostitution, although it is also judged as immoral, the State intervened in the opposite direction. The conversion of the sex market into European white trafficking was the way of making fe-male migrations and the breaking of certain traditional family and sexual canons more intelligible for the elites.

Descriptors: economic sociology, gambling, money, prostitution.

Keywords : abject economies; gambling; prostitution; social imaginaries.

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